Lord Horace Neighbour works as British attaché at the British Embassy in Washington
during the day, and fights crime at night as the caped crusader, Fantax. His enemies include the Mikado, the Gentleman Ghost,
the Werewolf, the Cobra and many more. Fantax
also fought against the Ku-Klux-Klan,
the Mafia (led by Al Capy), the Nazis and various secret societies like the Black Tigers. Like the early Batman stories, Fantax’
adventures owed more than a passing debt to the American pulps like The Shadow, The Spider and The Avenger.

Because of its violent contents, including S&M scenes, bondage, torture, etc.,
mild by today’s standards but deemed rather prurient at the time, Fantax quickly drew the wrath of conservative and Christian organizations. It is no exaggeration
to say that Fantax was single-handedly
responsible for the adoption of the Law of July 1949 which thereafter heavily censored adventure comics.

Thirty-nine issues of the original Fantax
were published between 1946 to 1949. Eight new stories were released in 1959, written by Mouchot and drawn by Rémy
Bordelet. A Fantax collection, Fantax est de Retour
[Fantax Returns], was reprinted
in the graphic novel format by Bedesup
in 1986.

Because of its success, a rather blatant imitation of Fantax was published in Italy under the name of Maskar. This is rather ironic since Fantax
was himself heavily inspired by DC Comics' Hourman.

The Authors

After drawing children's adventure strips during World War II, Pierre Mouchot (photo right) founded his own publishing company
in 1945, and created one of the first French costumed heroes, Fantax. Drawn by Mouchot,
who used the pseudonym of “Chott”, and
written by Marcel Navarro, who used the
American- sounding pseudonym of “J. K. Melwyn-Nash”,
Fantax was the first full-fledged super-hero
in the history of French comics. Recurring problems with French censorship ultimately drove Mouchot out of the comics business entirely. He
passed away in 1966.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MARCEL NAVARRO, .

The portrait of Fantax at the top of this page is an homage drawn in 1996 by Bob
Roc for GerardThomassian.